EXCELSIOR SPRINGS – Former Excelsior Springs Prosecutor and Municipal Judge Janet Lodwick Sutton, 56, Liberty, accepted a gubernatorial appointment to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, Kansas City.

Sutton had worked 32 years in Clay County.

A 1990 University of Missouri-Kansas City law grad, Sutton progressed from city to county law jobs. She became county assistant prosecutor in 1990 and chief assistant in 1999. Sutton became a Clay County associate judge in 2003.

Sutton became a Clay County associate judge in 2003. A decade later, then-Gov. Jay Nixon appointed her as a 7th Judicial Circuit judge in Clay County in 2013.

Under Missouri’s nonpartisan court plan, appointed judges stand before the public for an up-or-down vote every four years. Voters retained Sutton in every election, giving her a 69.5% approval rating out of more than 110,000 votes cast in the latest election, 2020.

Sutton received the appeals court appointment last month. She succeeded Thomas H. Newton, who r…